Czechoslovaks take the oath at Darney

On 30 June 1918, in a field outside the small town of Darney in the Vosges, about 6,000 soldiers of the 21st and 22nd Czechoslovak Rifle Regiments took the military oath. The President of France, Raymond Poincaré, presented a colour to the 21st Regiment. The secretary-general of the Czechoslovak National Council, Edvard Beneš, attended the ceremony. On this occasion the French government announced that it recognised the council as the supreme body of the Czechoslovak movement and supported the aspiration of the Czechs and Slovaks to independence. France became the first Entente power to commit itself openly to this. Today 30 June is Armed Forces Day in the Czech Republic.

The British chronology of the war records something else under this date: an agreement between the Czechoslovaks and Italy, under which Italy recognised the council and its authority over its compatriots. Sources do not confirm that a new Italo-Czechoslovak agreement was signed on 30 June, and the entry most likely refers to a convention concluded two months earlier. This was the Italo-Czechoslovak convention of 21 April, signed a dozen or so days after the Congress of Oppressed Nationalities. It allowed a Czechoslovak army to be formed from prisoners of war in Italy, recognised as the armed force of the future state but incorporated into the Italian army. On 24 May, the anniversary of Italy’s entry into the war, the Prime Minister, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, handed the legion’s colour to Milan Rastislav Štefánik at a ceremony by the monument to Victor Emmanuel II in Rome. In June Czechoslovak scouts were already fighting on the Italian side in the Battle of the Piave.

The Czechoslovak army in France had been created by a decree of the French government in December 1917. The 21st Regiment was formed at Cognac in January 1918, and the 22nd Regiment in May. They were joined by volunteers from Russia, Czechs and Slovaks freed from Serbian and Romanian captivity, and émigrés, including some from America. Formally the Czechoslovak Corps in Russia also belonged to this army; in the spring, instead of reaching France, it had landed in the very middle of the Russian Civil War. In June the brigade took up quarters in a camp near Darney. On 15 June the French ambassador in Washington passed to the Americans the programme the council had put to Paris: recognition of the existence of a Czechoslovak state, recognition of the council de facto as its lawful government, and a loan of 20 million francs. The French wanted to grant the council privileges similar to those they had earlier granted the Polish National Committee, but first asked whether this was consistent with President Wilson’s views.

The telegram that the Foreign Minister, Stéphen Pichon, sent to the Allies on the day of the ceremony read: “The President of the Republic today presents a colour to the Czechoslovak army formed of volunteers on the French front. The Government of the Republic, faithful to the principles of respect for nationalities and for the freedom of oppressed peoples, (…) takes this opportunity to recognise the National Council as the supreme body of the Czechoslovak movement in the Entente countries.” The French government recognised as just the claims of the Czechoslovak nation and of the other oppressed Slav nations and announced that it would support “in all earnestness” the aspirations to independence for which the Czechoslovak soldiers were fighting. Paris asked the Allies for similar telegrams that could appear in the French press. Washington, which the day before had declared itself in favour of the liberation of the Slavs, replied, however, only orally. Some studies date the French recognition to 29 June, the day before the ceremony.

This was not yet recognition of the council as a government, but it opened the way to it. On 9 August Britain recognised the council as the trustee of the future Czechoslovak government, and at the beginning of September the United States recognised it as a de facto government. The brigade from Darney fought in the autumn in Alsace and in the Ardennes. Today a monument stands on the site of the oath.